A monoecious, clustered, unarmed palm, 4—30 m tall, with slender stem, 20—30 cm in diameter. Leaves pinnate, few, often in a spreading crown, sheath forming a prominent crownshaft. Infructescences below the crownshaft, in panicle-like spikes, ca. 60 cm long. Fruit a globose drupe, ca. 1.5 cm in diameter, darkish purple, single-seeded; exocarp smooth, mesocarp rather thin with radially arranged scleroid bundles and an inner layer of thin flat fibres, endocarp thin, crustaceous, tanniniferous. Seed globose, accounting for most of the volume of the fruit.

Antioxidant and astringent (fruit)

PROSEA (Plant Resources of South-East Asia) Foundation
Raintree Nutrition, Inc.

Used to treat diarrhea (oil of the fruit); used for jaundice and to build the blood (infusion of root); as a topical wash for skin ulcers (infusion of grated fruit rind); used in an infusion for fevers (seed); malaria, diabetes, hepatitis and jaundice, hair loss, hemorrhages, liver and kidney diseases, menstrual pain, and muscle pain (decoction of root).